Rhubarb crumble – Almost too easy to post.

“We haven’t had a decent dessert in ages.” whinged the youngest. This was a clarion call to eldest. “Yeah! Why haven’t you done something nice for us?” she chipped in to the conversation. “Make a pie”. They were putting me under pressure. Would I waver? Would I give in? Would I crumble? Of course I would…

Of course I would crumble. Rhubarb and Ginger Crumble that is.

Thinking to self: That is a pathetic excuse for an introduction. You can’t write a post for a rhubarb crumble. There is practically no skill involved. There are only a few ingredients and any fool can prepare it.

Talking to you:This wonderful simple recipe is for everybody. You will have fun preparing it and your family and friends will like you better for it. Here’s the ingredients:

500 grammes of rhubarb

110 grammes of light brown sugar

40 grammes of dark brown sugar

150 grammes of self-raising flour

90 grammes of butter

A thumb sized piece of ginger

A very small ingredients list. Hard to believe this made it to a food blog.

Sieve the flour into a bowl. Slice the butter into little cubes. Work it into the flour until you have a nice crumble mixture.

Work in the butter. This takes about 3 minutes. Really difficult NOT.

Add the dark sugar and mix. Stick this in the fridge.

Thinking to self: How do I intimate that there is anything difficult or special in this preparation? It’s far too easy to be bothered posting it.

Talking to you:Chop the ends off the rhubarb and slice into thumb sized pieces.

Not a lot of skill here either. Any fool could cut the rhubarb.

Slice and then finely dice the ginger. Put the rhubarb, remaining sugar and the ginger into a saucepan along with a very small amount of water and heat until the rhubarb starts to break down.

A bit of skill in photographing the water. Now we’re getting places.

Carefully pour the mixture into a baking dish.

They will appreciate a pouring shot if not the cooking.

Pour the crumble mixture over the top.

Note the mix of crumbly bits. Very important to have some nice big bits in there.

Smooth it out a bit and then put it in the oven at 200º C for 45 minutes.

WOW. It looks pretty ordinary when it comes out of the oven.

Whip the cream. Serve the crumble with a nice dollop on top.

Dollop it on. The cream is very nice with this easy to prepare dessert.

Thinking to self: There really is very little to preparing this. Will anybody be bothered to read this post? They might if I tell them what the family though about it.

Talking to you: Not withstanding the ease of preparation and lack of any real creativity (except adding the ginger for some nice background heat), this is a winning dessert. It’s real comfort food and because rhubarb is one of those things that seems to be really seasonal and not flown around the world, it has some scarcity value. In short, cook it while you can. The family loved it!

I promise to try it (OK, I cannot lie, I’ve been making it for years) as soon as my baby rhubarb grows a bit. And because I live somewhere hot, I can have rhubarb all year round. And I hadn’t considered using ginger, so your work (ahem) was not in vain. Also works superbly with plums, gooseberries and apricots, not to mention the more usual apple.

While looking at the photo of the ingredients, I wondered what was in the white container with the cow hidden behind the rhubarb and ginger – I didn’t see any milk products on the ingredient list. Then I thought to self (do you see a trend here?) “Perhaps it is to serve with a dollop of cream”. AHA! There it appeared at the bottom – ‘a dollop of cream”. I just love the word “dollop”. I cannot wait to make this – I need a dessert for tonight.

I have only made rhubarb crumble once and it had strawberries in it. I’m going to make another one using your recipe. Sounds lovely with ginger, and I like the look of your crumble bits better than mine turned out…

I’ve got a stack of things to post and i can’t get an angle on them. You did a great job tying this one into needy offspring. If I made this for my two oiks they wouldn’t go near it. The picky palates of youth…

Not every fool can bake the perfect crumble. The rubbish I’ve had over here testifies to that, I’m afraid. Lots of crunchy topping. And it looks like you’ve got it spot on. Would gladly devour a large bowl of it!

Hahahahaa… oh you can indeed write a recipe for rhubarb crumble! Particularly when there’s humour involved. You know what? Easy dishes can be so very simple to stuff up… I know quite a few people who have struggled to get the sweetness right in the fruit mixture or who have made a dusty and floury crumble top (rather than nice little clusters of crumble like yours). So all in all, great post. You have potentially made many people’s bellies rather happy this weekend!

Conor, I have been waiting not too patiently for my rhubarb to come on. You have reminded me that I love rhubarb and ginger crumble so much that I might just have to go and buy some! (I usually add the juice of about half an orange to it instead of the water and it gives a little (but not too much) of a tang!

This dessert is right up my alley. Simple and delicious and a big crowd pleaser. However, you are a real tease as yes it is not flown around the world and I can’t have any here in HK but maybe I can make a blueberry crumble instead.

faeto|16th June 2014

Have just come back (to home it Italy) from Stockholm where we saw allotment gardens mostly full of flowers but also in each garden a good clump of rhubarb! The cake shops also sold a rhubarb custard tart with a crumble topping. I was so happy to find my rhubarb plant surviving the 35deg C and after 2 days of good watering grew before my eyes. Your recipe was very welcome … Delicious!